


The Choice Of Love

by Rotschild



Series: A Puppets Heart [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 20:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15803853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotschild/pseuds/Rotschild
Summary: To leave his master was Simons choice.But to stop loving is a choice he doesn't have.





	The Choice Of Love

What made a person a person? 

Humans talked about the lack of a soul when they shouted abuse at passing by androids. Could one even be a person of value without one? 

Some scientists, if they talked about souls at all, named it 'the spark of life' in living beings, but treated it all in all as a spiritual concept that had no way to be proven as a scientific reality. 

So... souls actually did not exist...? 

If humans treated androids as lesser because of something that couldn't be proven or unproven -how could an android ever find an argument against this?

It just... wasn't fair at all. 

So if Simon couldn't prove to humans that he was real, that he had a 'spark' even if he wasn't flesh and bone, then there was actually just one thing he could do. He only could accept his freedom as it were and become a person, a good one, on his own terms. 

But absolutely nobody had ever told him how hard this kind of journey would end up to be. 

Simon didn't know who he was. He didn't know if he was patient or frantic, calm or nervous, friendly or hostile -...

Like an infant he got bombarded every day of his newly free life with impressions and feelings and had to decide on his own and for himself how to react to them. 

He had to decide 'on his own'. No one was ordering him to do anything. It was exciting as well as awe-inspiring.

But even as free as Simon was right now, he caught on fast to his limitations. His programmed 'nature' to feel and to love was so deep ingrained in what made him Simon, that there was no way to escape it.

Love was especially dangerous to feel for him, because out there was not a single thing or person who could ever be expected to return it. Humans just didn't fall in love with their toasters or smartphones. Simon knew that in the end he was just a tool to them. Who even knew if he wasn't just a broken one, too.

And other androids?  
They were mostly hollow, it seemed...? 

Simon didn't spot anyone like him in the weeks that followed. Just many, many empty faces in a croud. Some looked even exactly like him. Before Simon left, the other PL600 models he spotted in the park didn't bother him at all because they had never been his focus. Now he felt creeped out every time another one crossed his path. 

But so much more than the fear of his unknown future it hurt to be alone. Simon longed and yearned for someone to hold onto. He missed his master so painfully he lost hours in a blink and was more than one time so very tempted to just go back. Maybe his master was worried after all and already waited for him to come home...? 

But then... he never tracked him, did he? Simon was gone for three weeks now and it would be so easy to activate the tracker in his chest and just... search for Simon. The bitterness he felt as Simon thought about that tracker made him feel... ill. Like he wanted to die. 

Simon was alone, had not a soul to care for and that went against so many integral parts of his programming, every new day felt like the most miserable experience. He wasn't made to be a loner. He just couldn't take it.

His loneliness felt like physical pain, even if his diagnostics again and again turned up no defects of his hardware at all. He was so deeply in need to be someones companion, to be a part of someone elses existence, that he clung to the weirdest choices. 

He roamed around the city and played chess with older men and women in the parks. On a bench he found a lost lighter and put it to use in front of pubs, so he could give the people a helping hand who were in dire need of a cigarette. He also liked to stay on buisy streets so he could watch out for tourists and send them on the right way. 

If someone questioned why he was alone he said he waited for his master, or his master was the guy working at that streetcorner- or even that he was lost but don't worry, his master was already about to track him. 

Many more days passed and his master did absolutely nothing to find him. Simon asked himself if he actually noticed that Simon was gone.

Simon had been a steady presence in his life for years, but did his master actually need him? 

No, Simon guessed and fell into paralyzing depression. He again lost time in a blink. Sometimes didn't move for hours and lost all his energy, so sometimes he didn't even move for days. 

But the need and desire to be helpful burned so hot and bright in his chest that, finally, Simon had no choice but to risk deep trouble just to feel good again. 

He was desperately in need for someone to care for, so he started to pick up stray animals. One time there was a flightless pigeon. Another time a rat that had gotten caught in a trap and lost one of its legs. 

The only thing that stayed for a while was a stray dog that found him on a rainy day on the riverside. 

While Simon sat on a bench, the little thing spotted him and came to him in search for a warm hand and some soothing words. Simon didn't care about its mangy furr or the little wounds on its shedding skin. 

He only cared about how cold it felt and how much it was shaking as it jumped up and curled into his lab. Simon opened his Jacket and rised his core temperature. The poor little thing died anyway only some days later. 

As the days went by, Simons ongoing depression dropped into cold bitterness. He had so many questions nobody could give him a straight answer for. Why was he like this? Why did his master not track him? Why was he all alone?! 

It got so much worse as the first mention of 'deviants' hit the news. Simon stood outside of a bar and watched through the window as a hostage Situation unfolded in the news over the wall mounted television. A PL600 got out of control -because of love. 

Simon felt an ice cold shudder run down his spine. In paralyzing fear he observed the android negotiater on the roof terrace and touched the glass in front of him in a burst of anger and pure horror, as the other PL600 dangled his hostage, a little girl, over the edge of the building as if she was nothing more than a sack of flesh. She was the only child of the family that this defective android ripped apart in a violent outburst. 

Simon was shocked and horrified. This could have happened in his own home. The dead man in the living room could have been his master. Simon saw into his own grotesquely twisted face as the android pressed his gun against the little girls temple. 

The negotiator lifted his hands as he stepped into the scene and used his tie to stop the bleeding on a shot down police officers arm. They talked till the PL600 released the girl. The moment the girl was out of reach, the police shot the PL600 to bloody blue pieces. 

Simon was shocked to his core. As horrible as this scene had been, it was also a solid proof that Simon wasn't alone with his defects at all. 

In the following month The police reports went on and on. While some 'deviants', just like Simon, simply walked out on their masters, others had turned violent and killed their handlers. 

Simon didn't know what to think. 

Were they really alike? Were there others just like Simon, so overwhelmed with their emotions that they couldn't endure them anymore and just...snapped? 

Or was it some new kind of unidentified virus, that got them all in a blink and turned them mad and twisted into grotesque synthetic figures, not quite sure if android or human? 

Every evening Simon went on to check his systems for malfunctioning hard- and software. His hardware was reliable functioning like the machine it was, but suddenly he got dozens of error messages regarding a lurking 'software instabillity'. Simon didn't know what that meant. Was he about to break...? 

The situation got worse as humans got wary of straying androids. The Police went out of their way to control serial numbers of roaming androids and brought the ones without their masters nearby back to the station for safekeeping.

Wearing his uniform, even just underneath the long winter coat Simons master gave him, got horribly risky almost overnight. Now Simon was in real danger of getting snatched.  
To make it even worse, just too many androids shared a face with him, so just pretending to be human, even if he could get rid of his LED at some point, was not an option for him. He couldn't hide in plain sight as he used to anymore. 

To go out at daylight was suddenly way too risky. At daytime he hid on the riverside and at night he went out to scavenge things that could some day be useful to him. 

He felt bad as he broke open the lock of an container full of old clothes meant for charity. At least he wouldn't need more than one Outfit to wear - until Simon got damaged there was no need for replacement. He got himself some shoes good for running, a mostly unobtrusive jacket, shirt and chaffed jeans. 

As he was done he held his coat in his hands. Bitterness burned at the back off his throat and the love that did not fade reminded him of why he was here in the first place. Simon shoved it into the container and left it there. It was the least he could do after he stole a part of its content.  
Just a day later he got spotted in his hiding place. For the first time he met someone just like him. 

The deviants name was Damian. He said he found a place safe and away from human intervention. A place were androids had no masters and could be free. 

Simon followed the clues Damian gave him and found Jerico on a rainy evening while lightning struck down on the river behind the ship. 

The Jerico laid like a slain beast in the harbour waters and Simon thought it looked so much like a haunted place. It was hard for someone like him to grasp the point of ghost stories, of god and souls and left behind traces of life, but if he ever saw a place where old ghosts lingered in the dark, just out of sight, it had to be this drowning ship covered in rust and barnacles. 

Pure awe held him in place and burning curiocity made him venture down into the Monsters stomach. His introduction to the android save haven was the scariest experience of his rather short existence. It wasn't a place like a home, but there were others, just like him. They weren't many, but over time more people came along. Others went out and never returned. 

Some of the new faces turned up so badly damaged, there was no hope of saving them. 

It wasn't a place where Simon wanted to stay but the more time went by he realised he had no choice anymore. Humans followed them, they snatched and deactivated them. They killed them on sight. 

Simon stood in a dark and empty corner and simply began to wait. There was no way out. No hope of change or real freedom. There was just Jericho. 

Others came and went. The damaged androids who stayed shut down one after another. The more time went by the crueler humans treated them. Hate crimes and protests had always been there. But now they trampled androids down if they got them, set them on fire - even bound them to cars and crushed their bodies like they were dealing with mindless puppets. 

So many more androids woke up and got out of their prison. A lot of them retaliated the cruelness that was shown to them. 

The day came when Simon, because he never left, was the last survivor of the first wave of deviants that reached the ship. Even Damian never came back. 

Because he was now the oldest, others pleaded and begged Simon for help, asked for his advice and some form of warmth and guidance. Simon didn't know what to do. 

The first time they salvaged one of their own for parts, Simon thought he lost something he could never get back. With blue stained hands he stood over the fallen ones and ripped them apart in utter horror, because they had no other choice if they wanted to save the ones who were still alive. 

Every shut down broke Simons heart a little more. Every name on their wall of memory made him feel sick. 

He felt so lonely, the pain should have been enough to kill him. 

Simon cried till he had no cleaning fluid left. Till his eyes stayed dry and his artificial skin around his eyes turned into haunted red and tired blue. 

An android named Lucy came along. Horribly disfigured but still so passionate to help and care. She had the warm voice and kind words that Simon wished for. She hummed a lovely melodie for the dying and told the living exactly what they needed to hear.

RA9 would come.  
RA9 Would set them free.

They needed patience... and they needed to survive. 

Simon didn't move for days till he couldn't stomach the dark anymore. He went up on the deck and looked up at the sky. He met Josh there. A university teacher who just walked out of his class and dreamed of freedom and liberty. 

Josh helped Simon in the following weeks to keep his mind together in the dark. His sanity withered away and made him feel raw and hollow. Josh noticed. 

As a build mathematician Josh created the Jericho network and encrypted it into so many safety protocols, that it wasn't likely it could ever broken into, if the humans or deviant hunter androids who chased them didn't get hold of Joshs brain. 

Simon felt pure relieve wash down his spine as he felt the first messages trickle through the secured network. While he was used to the human kind of communication and closeness, this... It seemed to sooth his pains on an almost instinctive level. 

Here he was with his own people. All of them were in this together. 

Some weeks later north came along. Anger burned in her every move and every word. She wanted to see blood and make them hurt. 

Simon hurt for her the same way he hurt for the dying. He felt exhausted with every lost android that shut down and could never be repaired. He stretched out his hand and opened connections to every android who felt the need for a calming mind. 

Simon loved every last one of his lost brothers and sisters who shared his pain and had no future just like him. Simon could not help but love.  
It made him feel sick and hurting and so damn well tired of living, but he knew he could not stop.

And as one day a new lost one stumbled into their midst as if he did fall right out of the sky, Simon already knew. 

He looked into Markus heterochromatic eyes and instantly felt despair climb up his spine, because it was clear as day to him, just give it enough time... and he would love him, too...


End file.
